Hiding a House in the Apocalypse - Chapter 333



Only Krnovel

Episode 333 134. Discovery

While we were away, the Defender siblings left the area.

It is said that Ha Tae-hoon came out to greet them briefly, but no one saw them off as they left.

Even my classmate Cheon Yeong-jae.

The story is that the conflict was deeper than I realized.

Of course, the Defender didn’t contact me in any special way on the day of departure.

Maybe he had a sense of shame and didn’t contact me unnecessarily, but I felt a little disappointed that he didn’t even leave a message, let alone a note.

“They’re finally gone. Those people. Seriously. What kind of people do they do?”

It’s common to see the scars of someone who has passed away.

Bang Jae-hyuk’s mother, who had been watching the Defender siblings’ reactions and was only next to her son, suddenly came out and started talking bad about the Defender siblings in broad daylight.

“They’re siblings, but they’re stuck together. What are they doing? Doesn’t something seem suspicious?”

I have no intention of defending the Defender siblings, but I also don’t want to hear their curses, so I called Bang Jae-hyuk aside.

“I know.”

Bang Jae-hyuk, who approached me limping, seemed to know what I wanted from the beginning.

“I’ll warn you. But there was a lot that had piled up. Our relationship was really bad. If you unilaterally and coldly reject someone’s kindness like that, even Buddha would get angry, right?”

“Even taking that into account, I think that’s an exaggeration.”

“Can’t you let me vent my frustrations to my heart’s content for just one day? She’s my mother, but she’s also an old woman. I need to somehow let out what’s been building up in my heart, right?”

They say there is no country for old men, but it is also a harsh reality that there do not seem to be many good old people.

It can’t be helped.

The body and mind are not two, but one.

No matter how noble a spirit a person has, it is bound to change with the passage of time.

The weight of life that one person can bear.

There is a limit to the weight one person can carry, although there is some variation.

The reason why the saints who carried the cross were so respected was probably because they tried to take on an excessive weight that was not permitted for humans.

“······.”

I thought of Rebecca.

This is the friend I worry about the most.

He rarely comes out of the bunker and leaves the guard duty to Suu.

What’s different from before is that instead of Viva! Apocalypse! we’re doing Necropolis.

I went to see her.

“Skeleton.”

I lost a lot of weight.

I have no energy and my eyes are blurry.

According to Suu, he just lay in a dark bunker all day and did nothing but go to the Necropolis.

Although Suu loved Rebecca, her mother’s continued negative behavior was making Suu feel skeptical.

The rebelliousness typical of adolescence and the growing disappointment are likely to lead to a very unpleasant ending, although it is unclear where this will lead.

For a moment, the image of the Defender siblings flashed before my eyes.

In particular, the image of Da-jeong smiling at me every day was engraved so strongly in a corner of my mind that it lingered.

“······Wait a minute. Should we go outside?”

I felt like this couldn’t go on.

“where?”

“I thought it would be good to get some fresh air.”

“no.”

“Isn’t it better to go even if you don’t like it?”

He held up the wires connected to the bunker and pretended to cut them with his fingers like scissors.

Only then did Rebecca sigh and get up from her seat.

She was dressed in a shabby military uniform with her hair unwashed, and she gave off a scent that would make people frown even from afar.

I didn’t really show it.

As Suu was returning from guard duty, he saw us with his gun on his shoulder and tilted his head.

After giving a gentle wave to Suu, he opened the main gate of the area and walked down the slope with Rebecca.

It was as we descended the gentle slope and entered the plain that we opened our mouths.

“You don’t like being here?”

I don’t want to twist my words.

“huh.”

Rebecca also immediately revealed her true feelings.

“What are you going to do?”

He asked as he walked.

“I don’t know.”

I’ve been wondering for a while, but I’m convinced after seeing recent moves.

She is still a person from across the sea.

We have some contact, but it’s a relationship of necessity.

Apart from a slight fondness for me, her feelings for our comrades are not much different from when we first met in front of my bunker.

She wants to remain someone else.

Until now I have just been watching, but now I think I need to get involved.

I won’t deny that the departure of the Defender siblings had a big part to play in this choice.

“If you go back to where you came from, I will help you.”

“Where? Daegu?”

“That’s impossible.”

I turned my head and looked east.

This is the village where Rebecca and her daughter lived in the past.

Although it is now a ghost town where no one lives, the town where gunshots were always heard is a place of many memories for me and Rebecca.

“there?”

“I’m thinking of packing up and organizing everything I need. What do you think?”

Taking a break is also a good option.

Anyway, her territory and my territory are just a stone’s throw away.

It might not be a bad idea to try to slowly reconcile while keeping some distance between each other.

Rebecca closed her mouth and rolled her eyes.

A look of many thoughts.

He’ll probably do his own calculations.

Soon she looked at me with eyes of a different color than ours and said:

“prong.”

I thought about it for about a minute.

It’s a Rebecca Down decision.

But it can’t be like this.

It’s not a question of whether she goes or not.

He asked with a shallow sigh.

“Don’t you consult with Suu?”

“Soo?”

Rebecca looked puzzled, then smiled brightly and continued speaking.

“Swoo, listen to me carefully. You are a good daughter.”

I remember what Su-u said and did to me in Sejong.

Sue’s patience with Rebecca is slowly reaching its limit.

As the daughter grew, the gap between mother and daughter grew wider.

“What are you going to do if Suuga doesn’t go?”

At my question, Rebecca stopped walking and stared at me blankly with her mouth open.

I turned around and looked at her quietly.

“What? Suuga?”

“Uh. If Suu doesn’t go, what are you going to do then?”

Rebecca muttered in English.

It looks like you got hit from an unexpected place.

I left her behind and walked forward slowly.

What catches the eye are the fields that still retain their greenness and the small factories scattered here and there.

“Skeleton!”

Rebecca followed me.

“Suga isn’t going. What do you mean?”

Thinking that Rebecca might not understand the word puberty, I took out my phone and showed her the English translation of the word puberty.

“······puberty.”

One word can sometimes speak louder than a thousand words.

“Swoosh, puberty······.”

At that moment, I motioned for Rebecca to shut up.

Clank-

There is a sound nearby.

Although she has been hiding in the corner of the room and showing an ugly appearance, Rebecca is also a worthy survivor of the era of destruction.

His dazed face soon changed into that of a warrior, and he skillfully manipulated the gun he was holding to protect my side.

Stepped back.

There are three ways in which we can meet.

Human, mutation, or wild animal.

Both are dangerous, but if I had to choose the less dangerous one, it would be wild animals.

Don’t jump to conclusions.

While holding the gun, he felt the weight and texture of the axe against his lower body and slowly stepped back with Rebecca.

If our potential enemy is human, it is right to lie down here.

But it’s not a wise choice to lie down against a ferocious beast like a mutation.

The moment we lie down, we lose the advantages that make us human.

This means that humans lose the greatest advantage of standing on two legs: a wide field of vision.

Sights are closely related to firearms.

Especially in terms of preemptive strikes.

“······.”

He kept a constant watch in all directions and sent signals to Rebecca to find and secure cover.

Although she has been acting in an ugly manner recently, Rebecca is still a soldier in a military group that was once called the world’s strongest.

With a physique no less than that of a man, she ran quickly and nimbly to secure the stone wall, and lightly struck the wall with her buttstock, indicating that she could provide cover for me.

He returned to full power and leaned forward next to Rebecca.

“What was it?”

Rebecca asks.

Instead of answering, I stared intently in the direction where the sound came from.

Soon a rustling sound was heard beyond the bushes.

Rebecca also held her breath and tightened her grip on the gun.

“Cease fire. Please fire only when ordered to do so.”

“huh.”

Rustle-

There is a sound.

I held my breath as I moved my finger on the trigger ever so slightly.

Soon something dark appeared beyond the bushes.

Rebecca laughed.

It’s a cat.

A normal cat, not a mutation.

It’s the guy I saw a lot before the war.

“······.”

Is the feeling dead?

It doesn’t seem like it was just the cat’s movements.

There was something else.

“Skeleton. It’s a cat.”

Rebecca smiled faintly, as if to say, “I love cats, but I’ve never been depressed.”

He stared at the cat with an expressionless face.

What appeared before us was a kitten.

Not one, not two, no, three.

It has a completely different appearance from the native cat called the Korean Shorthair, which has half white and half gray fur.

It’s probably a purebred cat that was raised at home.

Soon, a girl who appears to be the mother appears quietly, biting the neck of one of her babies and looking at us.

“······.”

Not all beasts transform into mutations.

If all beasts had turned into mutations, humanity would have gone extinct long ago.

The mutation rate of animals varies by region, but in areas like ours where there is no nearby erosion, the probability of occurrence is said to be less than 1%.

Still, it seems like there are mutations everywhere because each and every one of them has such a huge presence.

Any area where a single mutation has taken hold is a danger zone in itself.

He aimed his gun at an enemy who was not at all threatening.

Clank-

The 1% chance is not fixed.

Just as people with cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure live with the risk of death every day, animals also have a daily chance of responding to mutation factors and mutating, and that chance increases dramatically with the appearance of monsters in the vicinity.

“Skeleton. Are you trying to kill him?”

Rebecca asks.

He nodded.

“If we don’t kill them now, they might come and kill us later.”

Rebecca mutters something in English.

He added, looking at her.

“Isn’t that the kind of world it is?”

“I know. I know······.”

Rebecca doesn’t seem to like the idea of ​​killing cats.

Perhaps because she was a mother with a daughter, she empathized with the cat raising its kittens.

Seeing her anxious expression changed my mind.

To be precise, I think we should hold off on killing the cat right now.

I don’t think there’s any need to add more stress to her already burdened life.

I always emphasize this, but there is a limit to the amount of stress a human can handle.

Stress doesn’t heal quickly and sometimes leaves permanent scars on the mind.

“······let’s go.”

Rebecca looked at me with sparkling eyes.

“Skeleton? You’re not going to kill him?”

“When I look at your face, I don’t think I should kill you. And besides.”

I reached out my hand and felt the temperature of the wind touching my fingertips.

It got quite cold.

Current temperature is 23 degrees.

Considering that it is midday, the temperature is steadily dropping.

Those who are unprepared cannot survive this winter.

However, the goodwill built on these calculations ended in an absurd way.

Not long after we left, a cat’s shrill scream rang out.

The shrill screams soon turned into muffled cries, and the bushes fell into silence.

I exchanged a glance with Rebecca and then picked up my gun again, looking in the direction of the sound.

Rustle-

Something long reappeared.

The beast with its eyes wide open and the corpse of a dead cat in its mouth is a civet.

bang!

In an instant, I pulled out my pistol and blew the guy’s head off.

It’s not just for such trivial reasons as cat revenge.

That species of animal called a civet is a dangerous predator.

Especially when mutations are in progress, it’ll be more annoying than a black cat that’s wreaking havoc on the entire area.

Like the otters we’ve previously seen, the mustelids have a fearsome fighting ability when they grow large.

They should be dead and gone, even in terms of their chances of survival in winter.

“······Dead.”

Rebecca muttered as she looked at the corpses of the beasts.

He stood guard around the area with his pistol drawn.

If there are any friends of the raccoon, they must all be wiped out.

While I was looking for the raccoon, Rebecca found the cubs’ bodies.

One survived, but judging by the way its intestines were spilling out, there probably weren’t many left.

Even as I returned to Rebecca after finishing the search, she was still looking at the bodies.

“······Skeleton.”

Rebecca turned her head toward me, clenching her fists.

“I want to stay.”

I stared at her.

The eyes, which were a different color than ours, held a meaning that we knew well at this moment.

“okay?”

Did the death of the beast teach us a lesson?

I don’t think so.

All she needed was one clear trigger.

Squeak-

Rebecca’s dagger peeled the beasts’ pelts with practiced care.

It’s not just the raccoon.

Rebecca also separated the cat skins from the skin without any hesitation, sometimes asking me for help.

“Grab it. Yeah. Pull it all the way.”

Although she has a dull image, she is also a survivor who survived in the same era as us.

It’s true that she did receive help from me, but she endured most of her days with the shackles of being a young daughter.

Honestly, her survival difficulty would have been much heavier than mine.

“······Am I a little annoyed?”

She smiled innocently at me as she covered me with several layers of leather.

He nodded.

“Swoo was also annoyed.”

Rebecca shook her head with a bitter smile.

I walked ahead of her towards the area, and soon she followed me, holding the leather.

There isn’t much need for words between us.

This is a new discovery.

*

“Hey. That woman. Her sleight of hand is no joke.”

At least in the architectural field, it is not easy to receive praise from Ha Tae-hoon.

Ha Tae-hoon is looking at Rebecca’s skills with astonishment.

In particular, the technique of joining wood to wood without nails and only with joints seemed like a technique that Ha Tae-hoon was not familiar with.

I noticed that Rebecca was a great carpenter when she was building her cabin.

It’s not just carpenters.

Rebecca was also an expert at hunting.

bang!

Not only is his sharp shooting skill outstanding, but his skill in chasing animals by following the tracks they leave behind is also extraordinary.

“It would be nice to have a dog.”

He tracked down the entire family of martens and hunted them down.

They were also adept at dismembering corpses, and were particularly skilled at skinning them.

In return,

Wing- Wing-

The vacant lot where the leather was hung out in the sun was filled with flies and a foul smell, but no one looked down on her.

“Excuse me. American girl. Try this.”

Bang Jae-hyuk’s mother handed him a drink.

Rebecca stared at the stranger’s kindness with cold eyes, then accepted the glass and downed it in one gulp.

Rebecca gave a thumbs up.

“it is delicious.”

There was no grand welcoming ceremony or awkward symposium.

They get along and cooperate naturally and normally.

As if clothes were getting wet in a drizzle.

That’s how relationships begin with communication.

I don’t expect a very strong bond, but at least we won’t be living in isolation with walls built behind us like before.

“······.”

I looked at the empty bunker where the Defender siblings lived.

Could we have caught them if we had moved a little faster?

I’m 80% certain that they didn’t, but here I’m going to push the assumption that if I had caught them, they would have survived.

“Mr. Park Gyu, please have this. It’s the persimmon ade I made yesterday.”

Because I’ll feel more at ease if you do that.

“thank you.”